Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Inflation in Thailand

No, I'm not talking about cosmetic surgery. It's all about the money. Somehow, as the value of the Baht against the Dollar goes up, the number of Baht required to buy anything is going up.

Gas is up to 40B a liter, that's $1.30, times four for the gallon price, $5.20. In Baht that's more than the daily minimum wage, which lots of people get paid. The 20B bowl of noodle soup is now 30B, and all food has gone up at that rate, 10B may only be thirty cents but that's a 50% increase, the poor people are going nuts.

Everyone here travels by bus, the roads are covered with them, those tickets are way up too. And the little pick-up truck local "buses" are up 30% to 50%, lots of people ride those twice a day; kids take them to school.

This oil thing is hurting the little countries worse then the big.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I ride the company ass. Its 2x3 inches, blue & reads "Chevron". Don't even know what a gallon goes for these days. And no, i don't feel guilty.

*Jorgie boy

fred c said...

No reason to feel guilty Mr. Jorge. You haven't done anything wrong. Even somebody who runs forty gallons a week through a giant SUV shouldn't feel guilty. No one asked them to make policy for the good of the country. That's somebody else's job. Those people should feel guilty.